Bravado Living

It's bucket time.

Gentlemen, check out this Nubuck Leather Bucket Hat by Armani. This ain’t your regular bucket hat, this is a bucket hat for champs, a bucket hat that would’ve blown Gilligan away. Bucket hats are great for keeping the sun out of your face, making them great hats to wear to any casual outdoor festivity, be it the beach, the boat, or a BBQ.  Glare protection is also a must for any man trying to spot midday MILFs in the hot high noon sun. This is great accessory for your casual closet, ready to wear for a bucket load of occasions, the hat being pretty versatile in relation to what you can pair it up with.

I love when designers take classic apparel like the bucket hat, which has been around since pretty much forever, and tweaking it until they get something a little more exciting and new. Bucket hats are usually made out of cotton and denim, and while I would wear a hat made out of these fabrics, I love that this piece is made out of leather. There’s just something about wearing animals skins that makes me feel great. Add that to a classic hat design, alongside some other clever innovations, like the faux twill finish, and we have a great hat. That’ll do Armani, that’ll do.

Come get it, Mary Ann.

BUY IT Armani Collezioni Nubuck Leather Bucket Hat $555.00

Popularity: 5% [?]

Hosting is an art

There are tons of way to impress guests when entertaining in one’s home. You can show off the old big screen, flat or otherwise. You can always cash in cool points on having a good collection of pretty much anything that doesn’t make you seem like a pre-teen trapped in an adult’s body. So knives, books, art, and furniture are a yes; baseball cards, and action figures, and we’ll assume the 40 Year Old Virgin was based on a true story.

One guaranteed crowd-pleaser is a stocked home bar. Something about having a home bar, and by that I mean something that is more than a cabinet with a couple bottles of liquor and wine, really gets people’s juices flowing. You don’t even need to build a gigantic fully stocked home bar, just something with the “bar essentials” that can be placed in the corner or a back of a room or salon. Once that’s done, a simple cocktail recipe book and a little common sense is all you need. Here are the basics for a small bar at home.

THE BOOZE:
Beer, Lager(refrigerate)
Blended whiskey or Rye
Bourbon
Brandy
Gin
Pernod
Red wine, Cabernet Sauvignon and/or dry French
Rum, light
Scotch
Sherry, dry
Tequila, white
Triple Sec
Vermouth, dry and sweet
Vodka(keep in freezer)
White wine, dry French or California chardonnay(refrigerate)

Good start

MIXERS:
Cola
Cranberry juice
Diet soda
Ginger ale
Grapefruit juice
Lemon juice
Lemon-lime soda
Lime juice
Orange juice
Sparkling water
Tomato juice
Tonic water

GARNISHES AND CONDIMENTS:
Angostura bitters
Bar sugar
Black pepper
Cocktail Olives
Grenadine
Lemons
Limes
Maraschino cherries
Oranges
Tabasco sauce
Worcestershire sauce

GLASSWARE:
Brandy sniffer
Champagne flute
Cocktail glass
Highball glass
Old-Fashioned glass
Pilsner glass
Wine goblet

TOOLS OF THE TRADE:
Bar spoon
Blender
Bottle opener
Citrus reamer
Corkscrew
Jigger
Measuring cup
Measuring spoons
Mixing glass
Paring Knife
Standard shaker
Strainer.

Don’t let sheer magnitude of the list scare you. Build your bar slowly by starting with the basics:

1.) A great sipping whisky (Macallan’s 18, Highland Park 21, Blue Label)

2.) A great mixing whiskey (Dewer’s 12, Crown Royal, Maker’s Mark, Black Label)

3.) A premium bottle of vodka (Belvedere or Grey Goose, and Ketel One)

4.) A great Reposado or Blanco Tequila (4 Copas, Gran Patron Silver, 1921)

5.) A great selection of beers (Lagers, Dunkels, and your college favorite for impromptu parties)

6.) Champagne (Either for a celebration, or for girls that don’t like the taste of alcohol)

7.) Amaretto (For making amaretto sours- only for girls that don’t like the taste of alcohol)

8.) Respectable selection of wines (Red, Whites, Chardonnay, Sovereign Blanc, Zinfandel, etc)

9.) Extra’s: Ice! , Quality glasses, Large Heavy Duty Shaker (don’t put anything carbonated in it- rookie mistake), Towels

10.) Mixers: Soda’s, Sour mix, Juices, etc.

11.) Something impressive to put it all in (Go dark wood, with darker leather)

Impromptu Party

Good luck and happy hosting.

Hat Tip

Popularity: 16% [?]

Looking curiously similar to the bat-mobile, Lamborghini will unveil it’s newest creation next week at the Frankfurt Motor Show. Pumping a scary 650 horsepower out of it’s Mid-Mounted V12 engine and reaching speeds of over 200 MPH, and acceleration of 0-60 in under 3.4 seconds (in a convertible mind you!), this beast is menacing.

Never mind that this car is topless. This isn’t your typical weekend convertible. The car isn’t designed to help you soak up the sun. This car is designed to help you howl at the moon.

While lesser vehicles are sleeping, and the streets are thirsty. While you push this animal to road-blurring speeds, laughing maniacally like a mad man (frothing at the mouth, screaming, dick hanging out, etc).

While your engine roars that indistinguishable Lamborghini war chant that sounds awfully like a large, rather smug looking Italian bull laughing in the face of the current economic crisis.

Go ahead, push that pedal a little harder. You earned it. [Hat tip - Source]

BUY IT Lamborghini Reventón Roadster $1,000,000+

Popularity: 12% [?]

Highland Park Single Malt Whisky

Highland Park 21 Year Old Single Malt Whisky. 2009′s Best Whisky in the World (whisky for Scottish, Japanese, and Canadian- Whiskey for Irish and American). At least according to the World Whiskies Awards. Described with a fruitful nose, mouth-cooling palate, crystalline sugar taste, waxy mouthfeel, and underlying elements of mint, leather and vanilla- our mouth is watering just thinking about it. But don’t take our word for it- here are the experts:

An irresistible mix of dark grungey smoke and light sweet fruit. If you could barbecue a tin of Del Monte exotic fruits this is what it would taste like. Stunning
Dominic Roskrow

Cedar, forest floor. French toast accompanied by very tannic black tea. Reminds me of amber resin
Liza Weisstuch

The mouth bathes in a rich, chocolaty sweetness, then puckers up with the very drying tannic oak. A drop of water turns it into something delightful – juicy and nicely tingling with a long finish
Robin Laing

Big, fruity nose, dried fruits, dried herbs; waxy mouthfeel, sweet taste, crystalline sugar; mouth-cooling. A cracker!
Charles MacLean

Most whisky snobs would tell you to sip this from a brandy snifter at slightly above room temperature, but we’re big fans of refreshment. Pour it from your decanter, use a tumbler if you’d like, and I know it’s a crime, but throw in some ice and sip it slightly chilled. You’ll drink the next glass properly (right?).

It’s a little pricey at $256, but you can get it duty free for around $100. Just pull a favor from Your Travel Insider- he might give you one of his liquor exemptions next time he’s in the Caribbean.

And we wouldn’t mind a bottle thrown our way as well

BUY IT Highland Park 1984 Vintage Single Malt Whisky $256

Popularity: 12% [?]

Now we love Patek Phillipe as much as the next guy, but sometimes you need an everyday beater. A watch that can (sorry Timex) take a lickin’ and keep on tickin’. Normally for this genre we go to the standard issue dive watch. Waterproof, shockproof, and scratch resistant- exactly what we need. We never thought we would be looking at the sky for our next time piece. Well that’s exactly where we found this beauty. The Citizen Eco-Drive Nighthawk. Designed for pilots this beast boasts a stainless steel casing and band, a japaneze-quarts movement, screw-down crown, and perpetual calendar.

Although this watch comes in a titanium version as well, we like the hefty weight (and price difference) of the stainless steel version. Both versions come with a scratch resistant mineral glass (would prefer sapphire but what do you expect for the price), and a very useful slide rule that is easier to use than a calculator.

With the slide rule you can calculate your car’s fuel consumption, average speed/velocity and the time you will arrive at your destination, you can also multiply and divide numbers, calculate ratio’s into percentages, integers and decimals, covert liters to gallons, pounds to kilograms as well as other metric conversions, all with a simple twist of the bezel. The slide rule also performs a few more complicated calculations that involve airplanes and nautical vessels that are beyond our understanding.

But the real gem of this watch is the Eco-Drive function. Citizen has determined how to harness the power of sunlight to power this watch. It can even use the artificial light from indoor bulbs to keep the battery charged. It can go over 6 months without light and still maintain a charge and never needs to replace the battery. This can help keep the seal on the casing and keep this puppy waterproof and ocean-safe for years to come.

For the price and value of the watch, there’s no reason not to get it.

BUY IT Citizen Eco-Drive Nighthawk $237

EDIT: We found the Titanium Version for only $257 – BUY IT

Popularity: 10% [?]